2
It was 11 a.m. when the two officers showed up in my office, and I welcomed them in pleasantly but with some apprehension. They didn’t accept my invitation to sit. They were polite (too polite, I would say, with the exasperating politeness that contains the most extreme violence). The two were identical except that one wore his hair very short and the other had it in the style of the time (covering his ears); both wore black suits, white shirts, and red neckties with tie clips, yet one seemed very handsome while the other looked like he was dressed up as a Bible salesman. The more handsome one—as I discovered later—was Special Agent Menéndez of the FBI, and the other, the one who spoke, introduced himself as Inspector O’Connor of the Central Police Department of New Jersey, in Trenton. My English made me feel hesitant and unconvincing. “From what I gather, Doctor Rinzai,” O’Connor said, anglicizing the pronunciation of my last name, “you are from Buenos Aires… invited here, from what I gather, by Doctor Brown. We have here some of the emails that the two of you exchanged.” Of course they had all of our emails at their disposal and had surely recorded our phone conversations and listened to the surviving messages on the answering machine. That wasn’t even open for debate. I nodded. Thank you for your cooperation, O’Connor said. I knew the genre well, first comes a series of questions, used for what’s known in that lingo as “greasing the wheel.” The police would make it clear that they knew everything about the interrogee’s life and that he or she had little room to elaborate on it. For him it seemed natural to be holding my private correspondence in his hands, but I stayed calm because we’d never written about anything other than our work.
“You were a friend of hers…”
Amigo, colega y admirador. It sounded better when I said it in English: “Friend, fellow, and fan.”
They were collecting information about an accident that troubled the authorities because there were no direct witnesses. It was a violent death, and they weren’t ruling out any theories. They showed me a photograph of the car. I realized at once that the notion of it being an accident was too broad and that the police had a much more conspiratorial theory about the matter. They were saying, tacitly, that it could have been a suicide or murder. O’Connor smiled before explaining that he was surprised to find that Dr. Brown appeared to rouse little sympathy among her colleagues. Had they been saying bad things about her? One day after her death? Of course, he didn’t explain anything, just introduced a piece of information that indicated some confidence in his conversation with me. Everything I’ve been able to tell you is extremely confidential, he told me (I was suspicious of the adverb). The FBI agent wandered around my office, looking at books and indifferently going through the notes and papers I had pinned on a bulletin board opposite my desk. He asked me if I knew of any contact (the noun startled me) of Professor Brown’s who might assist them in the investigation, though of course he did not explain what kind of relationship he was referring to, and of course I told him that I didn’t get involved with personal matters. He seemed disoriented, and I wasn’t going to let myself be intimidated; I was from Argentina and knew what it was like dealing with the police. But then the other one shifted direction.
“Professor,” he said, and took down my diploma, “I have information that you take walks around town in the early morning.”
“Sometimes I can’t sleep. But that is irrelevant and private.”
“It may be private, but it isn’t irrelevant,” said O’Connor. He looked at his notepad. “Nothing is irrelevant under these circumstances.”
They were simply putting me under a bit more pressure. I knew the style. After that he stopped writing down what I said and instead read through things he’d noted on his pad, asking questions, trying to get me to corroborate his information.
“And you often experience insomnia…” He looked at me and smiled. “I’m told,” he said, “that you suffer from certain… episodes… Your doctor in Buenos Aires”—he looked at his notes—“Dr. Ahrest, has confirmed this information.”
They’d called him on the phone. He tightened the screw and said that, based on his understanding, I might often wander close to Dr. Brown’s house. I explained to them that I lived on Markham Road, as he already knew, and Dr. Brown’s house was on Harrison Street, so if I went out for walks it was logical that I would sometimes pass in front of her house.
He didn’t say anything. He looked at his notes. He was a professional, and he made it clear to me that they knew everything I might want to hide and that eventually, he said, they could request that I be examined in order to verify the diagnosis about my incidents or alleged episodes of wandering. That appeared to be all, but they paused in the doorway before leaving.
“You travel to New York often.”
“Whenever I can.”
“And you stay at The Leo House…” O’Connor smiled and looked at his pad as if he needed it to remember. On the weekend of February 20th, he said, I’d made a reservation there but hadn’t stayed in the room. Did I have anything to explain? I stared at him without answering. Instinctively, I’d concealed the history of my meetings with Ida, but they’d obviously discovered that I spent that weekend with her. Had they also gone investigating at the Hyatt?
“Best if you don’t leave town for the next few days. We
